24 quotes
The denser the ignorance, the more enlightened it thinks itself to be.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)
Nothing is more ingenious, more obstinate, nastier—indeed, in a sense, more clear sighted, than mediocrity harrying every form of superiority that offends it.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)
The faithful soul is always an open soul.
Theology in History (1990)
For a spiritual and metaphysical crisis, only a remedy of the same nature is appropriate.
Theology in History (1990)
Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to waste and destroy.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)
The most unbending thoughts are the most vulnerable to change.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)
Credulity, sectarianism, and sloth are three natural tendencies of man. Too often he canonizes them under nobler names.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)
Bergson said that the universe is "a machine to make gods". Teilhard would not take up the expression as his own: in his eyes, the universe is merely a machine to make persons.
Theology in History (1990)
It becomes increasingly clear that […] the Christian's watchword can no longer be "escape" but "collaboration". He must co-operate with God and men in God's work in the world and among humanity.
Catholicism (1938)
A […] form of present-day secularism is activism, which discounts contemplation and all interiority.
The Eternal Feminine (1968)
The Holy Spirit that Christ promised to send […] creates in man new depths which harmonize him with the "depths of God" [Job 11:7].
Catholicism (1938)
Remember, after all, that the Gospel is full of paradoxes, that man is himself a living paradox, and that according to the Fathers of the Church, the Incarnation is the supreme paradox.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)
No one has the right to say with Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?" [Gen 4:9] No one is a Christian for himself alone.
Catholicism (1938)
To seek sincerity above all things is perhaps, at bottom, not to want to be transformed; it is to cling to yourself, to have a morbid love of yourself, just as you are, that is to say, false. It is to refuse release.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)
There is nothing more demanding than the taste for mediocrity. Beneath its ever moderate appearance there is nothing more intemperate; nothing surer in its instinct; nothing more pitiless in its refusals. It suffers no greatness, shows beauty no mercy.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)
[S]ince being is analogical, we are quite correct in using the same words, in particular the word 'being', for both God and his creatures.
The Eternal Feminine (1968)
So he [Fernand Guimet] questioned that impoverished faith, which becomes mere religious sentiment, or an impulse without form, or even simple communitarian warmth, or, worse yet, slogans for action.
Theology in History (1990)
The contact of a believer with a nonbeliever must take the form of a dialogue. The all-powerful action of pure sanctity alone is dispensed from it, since it is not bound by any law. But the dialogue will never get underway if it is not first a dialogue with myself.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)
The fear of falling a prey to error must never prevent us from getting to the full truth. To overstep the limit, to go beyond, would be to err through excessive daring; but there are also errors of timidity which consist precisely in stopping short, never daring to go any further than half-truths.Love of truth never goes without daring. And that is one of the reasons why truth is not loved.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)
We must come to see that God is not so much the cause of moral obligation or the sanction of duty as the very substance of Good. Then what we call the moral proof brings us in one leap to the true God, revealing himself as God of Charity.
Paradoxes of Faith (1959)